I confessed your sins.

Cartoon poet

Questioning everything includes questioning the doctrine “Question Everything.”

-Brad Warner

I set out to confess my sins

but I confessed yours instead 

it seemed like that would be more interesting 

and it was 

also I made up some sins 

by that point I was on a roll 

there is no god   no heaven   no hell 

but forgive me anyway 

please 

-james lee jobe 

Patience is key to your mental health when you are physically ill. It is one of the few virtues you can actively cultivate when your body ceases to cooperate.

-Shozen Jack Haubner

LINK: The Earth, a poem by Sheila Black

bitter cold that day 

when we buried my grandma 

gray sky in January 1969   

Randallstown Maryland 

I was still a kid not yet 13 

the razor wind cut right through me 

my knees were shaking 

my face felt frozen 

I kept thinking that she would be in that hole 

for as long as I lived

my grandma   how I loved her jokes 

her scratchy voice and Baltimore accent 

calling everyone Hon 

such a cold awful day 

I shiver even now remembering it 

and it is mid summer in California 

         dear old soul 

-james lee jobe

Although they appear to be quite different, sadness and openness are in fact intimately connected. The profound sadness that overwhelms us when we understand the impermanent nature of all phenomena opens us up to the world around us.

-Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, “The Secret Strength of Sadness”

LINK: Anticipated Stranger, a poem by John Ashberry

watching a fall storm
rain falling into Putah Creek
the cycle is a circle
the circle is a cycle
oh how life goes around

-james lee jobe 

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

-Shunryu Suzuki

AT GOLDEN-RIDGE 

Golden-Ridge City 

is tucked into the earth 

with the river curving past 

and flowing away 

once a million homes where right here 

crimson towers beside narrow lanes 

a vanished country 

all spring grasses

and now 

the palace is buried in ancient hills 

yet this moon remains 

facing the timeless island 

across the water of Hou Lake water 

empty 

-LI PO, 701-762 CE

Herbie Hancock - Chameleon

Hello. James Lee here. If you enjoy this blog, and I hope that you do, please consider making a donation through the BUY ME A COFFEE button below. It's done safely online, and just takes a moment.

Thanks! -James

the heroes are not listening to you now

Xiaoyang Galas - Travel

Sun-faced Buddha and Moon-faced Buddha…
….and the Jobe-faced Buddha!
(Pardon me, but I do like to start the day with a laugh.)

________

sun plus air plus water
equals life

warmth and nourishment
equals a measure of love
human compassion

from the universe to us
the humans

                and from us

we should be putting something back

________

IF YOU DRINK IN THE MORNING, THE HEROES WILL NEVER COME. This is the name of your death. This is your death by the glass. It is easy to see your death if you look through the bottle of wine, holding it up to the morning sun. Your death in purple light. Your death in pinot noir, your death in cabernet sauvignon. The heroes are not listening to you now, they are all washing their capes for another day, another needy victim. No one listens to a drunk anyway.

________

Shunryu Suzuki said,
"it's wisdom which is asking for wisdom."
-- Could it be that this wandering fool called Jobe
has really been on the right path for sixty-six years?

james lee jobe 

Xiaoyang Galas - Colors Are Singing

The late evening crow

of deep autumn longing

suddenly cries out

-Buson (1715-1783)

translated by Sam Hamill

________

"I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe that we have an obligation to condemn speech that is racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, or hateful."

-John Lewis, from Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement

________

"If we can accept our imperfections as they are, then we can use them as part of the path."

-Chögyam Trungpa

________

"You are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a C.I.A. that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders, working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home." -Abbie Hoffman

________

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” -Jean Jacques Rousseau

________

Hello. If you enjoy this blog, and I hope that you do, please consider making a donation through the BUY ME A COFFEE button below. Thanks! -jlj

a house named death sounds perfect

North Davis Pond, Davis CA, by me

"The only source of reliable information is poetry.”

Andrei Codrescu

a quick note for my wife

I look like a man but that is just a ruse I am stone cut from the bones of this world beaten and shaped by the river for over one hundred thousand years
dogs love me and crows avoid me and I love those large things that exist in this life a smile on the face of our grandchild a wind with the strength to uproot the old oaks a sun that passes behind the moon
and casts a shadow across the earth you my wife
are the river that changed me every year that passes is different from the one before thank you for that
I am writing this down so I don't forget to tell you
that happens a lot now I love the peace of you
looking at the miracle of your face it is easy to see that the cares of yesterday are gone when you awaken I must find out how you do that time and time again

james lee jobe

Jon Batiste - Blackbird

"Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom."

Bodhidharma



rising above all this

The dream was one thing at first and then it changed into another
for so it often is with dreams I was alone in a dark room
mentally reviewing all the slights of my lifetime
the first wife who ran off and slept with several of my friends
the job where I was screwed over things like that
and these were slights from my real life not just dream slights
that done I went over my failures one by one that list was far longer
really I failed that first wife any woman would have left me in those days
and truly I was lousy at that job I would have fired me too
I began to pray in my dream 'please show me how to rise above all this and live with some kindness in my heart'
and I woke up then it was the middle of the night
and the house was still and quiet
I wasn't sleepy anymore so I turned on a radio
there was a symphony playing
I didn't know what symphony it was and I didn't try to find out

james lee jobe

"We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness." 

Thich Nhat Hanh



look this way the adventure is beginning

time has built a house out of reeds from the creek from milkweed and from the feathers lost by mockingbirds and larks the house is painted gray and black and has a name death so of course no one lives there it is dark inside and the windows are shuttered and make little creaking sounds when it is windy like in a movie I am going into that house because I need a new place to die so a house named death sounds perfect isn't it grand how sometimes everything in life just works out on its own

james lee jobe

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." 

Abraham Lincoln

Please help support this blog with a small donation on the BUY ME A COFFEE link below. Every little bit helps! 

Thanks, jlj 

expanding in all directions

Whenever we see something which would benefit others,

no matter how small, then we should do it. 

Tai Situ Rinpoc

I have an announcement to make 

this isn't the end 

it's the beginning 

it's just a very long beginning 

chin up 

stay in the moment 

the universe expands in all directions 

at once 

james lee jobe 

Leon Russell - A Stranger In A Strange Land

As we realize how truly connected we are to others, our loneliness recedes, we feel lighter and more resilient, and we move forward in our lives with a greater appreciation for our shared humanity.

Mindy Newman

more than 20 years after my father's death 

I dreamed of him shining down 

on the earth in a blue beam of light 

he had no body 

but I could see his face in the light 

we were in an empty field at night 

he said this is how I am now 

this is it   I love you 

but I can't visit you here again 

when I woke up the next morning 

I felt a closeness to my father 

that we never had in life 

through death we had found each other 

at last 

james lee jobe 

I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.

Thich Nhat Hanh



I love to see a red tail hawk above my valley

circling in flight slowly slowly

it's a beautiful thing

of course the bird is hunting

and something might be about to die

alas

life is impermanence

the food chain does go on

james lee jobe 

The size of the place that one becomes a member of is limited only by the size of one’s heart. 

Gary Snyder

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Thanks, jlj 

I am ugly like tomorrow.

the body is bent but not broken
it is now like a pretzel
salted wrapped and brown
the long summer days are wrapped around this valley
like the weeks are wrapped around the months
the way that the years are wrapped around our lives
the way that the body is wrapped around the heart
the feet are planted on the solid body of the earth
the face looks up to the sky
the pretzel is delicious and is covered with spicy mustard
the exhaustion is very real
and pulls at the tendons beneath the flesh
and some of the salt and mustard falls to the ground
is this the day
is this even the year
bless you bless me,
bless us all every single one

fallen leaves from the crape myrtle trees blanket the cracked patio blue sky a clear December morning a cup of strong coffee in my hand and birds chirping off in the distance

I am a fish out of water throwing rocks at your window. I miss the river. Death has nude photographs of me from hacking my cell phone. I am not beautiful, no, I am ugly like tomorrow. I have scars like diamond mines and there are calluses on my frontal lobe, right where Jung said they would be. I don't care what you think about that. I don't really care what you think about anything except kindness. When I was still in the water I would record my dreams in liquid words. That was in another world, not this world. A different world, that only you and I could see, where you and I move like long shadows in the late afternoon. This is the world of children with guns in their hands. The world where kindness has become a shadow, or hides in the shadows. I am no longer sure which. I can't breathe this way, I need the water. I am a fish out of water throwing rocks at your window. I have one last rock to throw, and it's a big one, blue like the river.

a ladybug crawls on a blade of grass 

what about it everything 

the universe lends itself to the moment

by james lee jobe 

James Carr, 1966, Poring Water On A Drowning Man

Link: Doxorubicin: Infusion, a poem by Laura Paul Watson

Link: My Friend, Her Grandson, a poem by Pia Täavila-Borsheim

"Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still." 

-Eckhart Tolle

"To what shall I liken the world? Moonlight, reflected in dewdrops, shaken from a crane's bill?" 

-Dōgen Zenji

Hello. If you enjoy this blog, and I hope that you do, please consider making a donation through the BUY ME A COFFEE button below. It's done safely online, and just takes a moment. I could use the supplement since my mobility issues no longer allow me to work. 

Thanks! -James 

a dust mite morning in california

Hildy Maze

you can look for yourself on the parched ocean
you can look for yourself on the breaking waves of the desert
on the flatness of the mountains that speak
or even on the heights of the low valley that is silent and slow
through the brittle shell of years you might count the days and the nights
and here in this world without color
you could paint the picture of what you are not
the picture of what you are is already within your grasp
or hanging framed on your own wall
these are times of change and wonder
just as the oracle said they would be
where will you go and what will you do when you get there
when you finally get so very tired
that you cannot go even one more step
stop where you are and look around
no one can say what it is that you will see
but you can be absolutely certain of what you will not see

-----

the whisper of the bones is empty

the whisper of the dirt is empty

on days of solid steel

and nights that are riveted into place

we answer to whispers

we answer to the truth

but what is truth

did someone ask that

if you cannot see the truth

you might as well be blind

if you cannot hear the truth

you might as well be deaf

whisper to the bones

say one word yes

whisper to the dirt

say one word yes

the truth isn't one thing for you

and another for everyone else

go now there is nothing more

about this that I could ever tell you

-----

I confess I can easily lose myself

in the distant shimmers of heat

that rise from the flat earth

a dust mite morning in california

by james lee jobe

Sarah Jarosz - Tell Me True

We can aspire to be kind right in the moment, to relax and open our heart and mind to what is in front of us right in the moment. Now is the time. If there's any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. -Pema Chödrön

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction & devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist. -Bodhidharma

I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives.

-Billy Connolly

Please help support this blog with a small donation on the BUY ME A COFFEE link below. Every little bit helps! Thanks, jlj